Through the Shadows
by Xerxa
Summary: Luna and her friends play an infamous game, Sburb, unknowing of the adventure that lays ahead of them. It is not what they expect, but they go with it anyways, knowing that there is no way out. Summary sucks, story rated T just to be safe. Romance involved, pairings have yet to be discovered. Contains OCs!
1. The Start of a New Adventure

_== Be the shy girl_

_Luna shivered slightly at the cold chill running down her spine, she propped her left elbow up on her desk and placed her chin in the palm of her hand._ A pen was hanging loosely from her mouth, a paper with sentences and multiple scribbles and doodles sitting in front of her, the neon orange ink pleasing to her eyes. Currently, she was writing down ideas for a few fanfictions she was thinking of. Her eyes brightened, aubergine irises shining as she took the pen and wrote down a sentence but scratched it out, giving a small sigh. A long lock of blonde hair fell slightly in to her vision and blocked some of the paper, she quickly tucked the hair behind her ear. Luna quickly readjusted her black-rimmed 3D shades with blue and red lenses. She had ordered them online, feeling as if they would make her at least a bit more intimidating and/or cooler than she usually looked.

Around her was her room, it had soft violet walls with pastel white borders. Right now she was sitting at her oak desk, which lay in the middle of the right side of her room. In front of her was an unopened laptop, on the right of her paper were multiple pens, pencils, and erasers. To the left were some long chapter books stacked on top of each other to create a sort of wall. To the right of her desk was the door leading outside, which was opened just a bit. Left of her desk was her white painted dresser, containing four drawers that hold her clothes, and on top was a lamp, a couple stuffed animals, and a book or two. The front wall, which lay just next to her dresser, currently had two shut pastel white doors that led to her closet, and another door left of the closet leading to her bathroom. Then, the left wall had a TV on a stand in the corner. Next to that was a window with aubergine curtains, and then her bed, which had had a flowery orange blanket with two matching pillows. On the back wall, just next to the white door leading out of her room, had a small bookshelf containing not that many books, just some chapter books, romance novels, and horror movie cases on it. The carpet beneath everything was aubergine, matching her window curtains. Luna had to admit, it was a large room, and she liked it.

== Is this whole chapter about rooms or something?

Luna shook her head after hearing a voice inside her head question her about something.

== Check stats

A menu popped up with some words and numbers.

_Points:_ 15

_Health:_ 100

_Stress:_ 0

_Strength:_ 0

_Intelligence:_ 0

_Courage:_ 0

You are allowed to distribute 20 points among the four attributes.

== Distribute points accordingly

_Strength:_ 5

_Intelligence:_ 8

_Courage:_ 2

Sounds about right. No idea how the girl was able to hold the pen up before this, considering she had no skill points in any category at all. You decide not to contemplate this for an hour and instead go back to commanding the girl.

== Be hungry

'Oh man, I'm hungry...' she thought right after her stomach growled loudly at her. Luna hadn't eaten yet, and it was already three hours after noon. Though, she usually did eat around this time. She stood up, placing the bright orange pen next to the paper and walked to the door that was slightly ajar. Her hand reached and latched on to the edge, pulling it open just a bit more. Luna hopped over the part of her floor that would groan when she stepped on it, doing this so as to not alert her sister that she was leaving her room.

Her older sister would usually ambush her in the hall, her intentions varying each time. It was hard to avoid her, which caused Luna to become what she described as a "master ninja" and sneak through the house. Though whenever she actually went to her sister for something important, she would be glad to help. Like when she asked where babies came from, Sis described in great detail the intimate process of a man and woman in bed. She was terribly blunt with the whole thing. Then her sister ended up telling her that Luna came from a meteor, which she just laughed at.

'Too bad that Sis rarely ever talks to me anymore,' she thought, the corners of her soft pink lips curving in to a slight frown. Luna quietly sneaked past Sis's room, peaking in as she passed. Sis was no where in sight, which worried her slightly. Usually she would be in her room, reading fashion magazines or something. She shook her head and assumed that she was upstairs in the library. They had quite an unusual book collection, as Luna had seen. Books labeled "SBURB" or large tomes with different words on each of them. 'Breath, light, time, space, life, void, heart, mind, hope, doom, blood, and rage,' she recited in her head, remembering seeing all the books on one shelf. Sometimes Luna would sneak in to the library and grab one of them, go back to her room, and read through it. None of it made sense to her, the way the sentences were worded jumbled her thoughts greatly, giving her a head-ache. There were other books besides those, but she never bothered to read them.

== Hey! You there! Stop staring in to space!

Luna stopped herself from delving any deeper in to her memories in fear that Sis would catch her off-guard, oh, and that voice. She made her way down the steps of the stairs, trying her best to not make a sound, which included avoiding those certain spots on stairs that would groan when you step on them. Her bare foot would hover over the carpeted steps for a couple seconds before she gently set it down and slowly shifted her weight on to that foot, so as to not disturb the old steps. Luna wasn't sure how long the house had been there, but she assumed it was quite a long time. She repeated the process and quickly made her way down the stairs, successfully gaining access to the kitchen without her Sis interrupting her journey to inhale food.

'Praise the lord!' she thought, pumping her fist in to the air in triumph and then proceeding towards one of the cabinets. She shook her right leg slightly, feeling some of the fabric of her black jeans slightly bunched up from sitting down. 'I shall eat...' her thoughts trailed off as she looked inside the cabinets. Luna shrugged and grabbed a box of fruit loops, retrieving a bowl, spoon, and a milk carton while she was at it. With the things piled in her arms, she retreated up the stairs and in to her room to assemble her meal.

A while later, she was spooning the colorful loops of cereal in to her mouth, chewing slightly as she stared at the paper containing the fanfiction ideas. Her phone buzzed from within her pocket, causing her to jump and squeak loudly. She wasn't a person of confidence, that was sure. Luna pulled out the phone from the front right pocket of her jean.

== Answer?

== Yes

"Hello?" she asked with a small voice.

"LUNA! Hey!" a voice seemed to shout from the other end, causing Luna to hold the phone away from her.

"Hello Abby," Luna replied, and then proceeded to tell her to lower her voice.

"Sorry! So, whatcha up to?" Abby giggled as she apologized.

"I was-" Luna started but was cut off by her bubbly friend.

"That's cool! So, anyways, I was just walking around the mall and then I saw there was a sale-" Abby rambled on and on about her mall adventures.

Luna put the phone between her cheek and shoulder and doodled a picture on her paper. The neon orange ink was shiny and looked sparkly, which always left Luna in awe. Another spoonful of fruit loops were shoveled in to her mouth.

"-Cody was totally bashing on me for-" Luna tuned in on, but then tuned the overly excited Abby out once again. She made her way to the window and peaked out behind the aubergine colored curtains covering it, wondering if the mail had arrived. The little red arm swingy thing-a-ma-jig was up! "-and then he-"

== Hang up

"Gotta go! Mail's here!" Luna cut her off and hung up, shoving the phone in to her pocket once again and scurried out of her room and down the steps for the second time that day. She quietly opened the door and sprinted down the stairs and down the concrete path, not caring if her feet get scraped or not. Luna stepped on a rock and immediately stopped, hopping on to her left foot and hissing at the pain that seemed to pulse underneath the skin. She quickly pulled the rock out from the middle of her foot and chucked it aside, limping towards the mailbox and tugging it open. Inside were laying two envelopes labeled Sburb, and a dark crimson colored box. Luna took the mail and fast-limped her way back towards the house.

== Engage in strife

Once inside, she was ambushed by Sis, causing Luna to have to strife with her in order to get her to go away. She pulled out her scythe, having been using the scythekind as her weapon of choice. After a long and painful battle, Luna was left to kneel on the ground with her two envelopes and- hey! She searched frantically for the box, but it was gone. Groaning, she picked up the envelopes and limped up the stairs. 'Bet she took it, great!' she thought, entering her room and sitting down at her desk. Her laptop was open, having been turned on while she was writing down ideas. Luna brought up her Pesterchum application and started to pester Abby, who was currently online at the moment if you hadn't guessed.

timidGourmet [TG] began pestering technoTetris [TT]

TG: *TG hops up and down, having good news*

TG: Abby!

TG: Guess what?

TT: u strifed with ur sister?

TG: How did y- Never mind... Sburb arrived!

TT: that's gr8! cody and nick alrdy got it

TG: Oh... I thought I was the first to get it... Oh well! Now we can all play together right?

TG: I've been waiting so long for this, it's going to be fun!

TT: just give me a sec 2 msg nick

TG: Alright!

technoTetris [TT] ceased pestering timidGourmet [TG]

Luna installed her disks and stood up to go to the library, not caring if she was quiet or not. If she had encountered Sis once, she didn't bother her again for the entire day, so, she used this opportunity to grab some books from the library. She ascended up the steps wincing at the loud groans of protest. Once up in the library, she looked around the bookshelves and pulled out a Sburb book. Luna thumbed through the pages and noticed it was empty. Frowning, she held on to the book and instead looked through another one.

== Check all the books

Empty.

This was the case with each and every one, causing Luna to growl and keep one book with her to write her own guide for her contribution to the library. She made her way back to her room and sat at her desk, instead opening up Mozilla Firefox and opening up GameFAQs. Once there, she looked for a guide on Sburb. There was only one that she saw that the author had actually bothered to type out fully and carefully.

'By tentacleTherapist,' she read at the top, grinning and scrolling down to the first paragraph. Luna instead bookmarked the site and exited the browser, pulling up the Sburb window. She was told by Abby that Nick was going to be her client player, and her, his server player. Soon afterwards, the Sburb screen flickered and pulled up a cool looking loading screen. It finished loading in a minute or two, allowing her to view her friend. She screen capped the window, which she was going to print out and paste in to the book at some point. Luna was even considering making a GameFAQs walkthrough of her own, but decided against it, seeing as how this tentacleTherapist person had already been kind enough to take time out of her game session to help other individuals that had managed to get their hands on the game.

== Dispatch machines and card

Luna did as the voice said, moving Nick's bed, much to his annoyance, and dropped a cruxtruder down on the space where the bed used to be. She quickly scribbled down notes in the book, sliding over some note book paper and doodling some pictures of what it looked like. After done, she lowered her Sburb view to the first floor of Nick's house, dispatching a totem lathe in the living room and an alchemiter in the unnecessarily large kitchen. Luna then pulled up Pesterchum and messaged her annoyed friend.

== Instruct the asshole on what to do

timidGourmet [TG] began pestering acrylicArtisan [AA]

TG: *TG gives her friend a wave*

TG: Nick!

AA: why did you do that to my bed? You do realize my bro's asleep, right?

TG: I needed to make space for the cruxtruder, duh.

TG: Also, Noah is a heavy sleeper, so don't worry! He can sleep through anything!

TG: Okay, now listen to my instructions.

AA: Got it

Luna dispatched the card in front of Nick, who was staring at his phone, which had Pesterchum pulled up by what Luna could see.

TG: Pick that up and captchalogue it, you'll need it.

He did as she said.

AA: Now what?

TG: Try popping the cap off of the cruxtruder.

AA: The what now

TG: *TG face palms*

TG: The large machine.

AA: Oh

Nick went over to the machine and tried to pry off the cap, only to find himself sighing in frustration.

AA: I can't, it's stuck on there

TG: Let me try something...

Luna clicked on the bed and dragged it towards the cruxtruder, dropping it on and quickly dragging it away before it fell and hit Nick. The cap of the cruxtruder popped off, an ink black kernelsprite emerging from the top. It hovered around his bed that lay forgotten in a corner.

AA: Now what

TG: Grab the cruxite dowel from the inside of the cruxtruder.

AA: ..?

TG: The round cylinder thingy in the inside of the machine.

== Make notes before you forget

She leaned forward and put more notes down, along with another doodle with the countdown on the now opened cruxtruder circled in neon orange ink. Luna looked back up and studied the neon orange text mixing with her friend's inky black, plain text. It reminded her of the Halloween colors, causing her to smile. Luna loved that holiday, she liked to dress up as various things and go out with Abby and her little sister to go trick or treating. One year Luna would dress as a vampire, another year was a hobbit from Lord of the Rings, and then she dressed up as a wizard in the Gryffindor house from Harry Potter. There were so many things she dressed as, and all the costumes were those that she either made herself or ones that Nick had made.

== Look up and see friend is tapping his foot impatiently

Luna looked up at the screen, the memories being chased away as she realized he must have been waiting for a while now.

TG: Take a look at the time on the machine, what does it say?

AA: It says 26:31

AA: 26:30

AA: 26:29

TG: Okay, okay, I get it!

TG: Take that cylinder and go downstairs to the living room and go to the big machine there.

She watched as the boy did so, the inky black kernelsprite following after him. He made it downstairs and waited for her to give further instructions.

TG: Alright, now, put the cylinder inbetween there, and then the card I gave you in to the slot.

It took a minute or two, but he figured it out. The totem lathe carved a totem, which Luna instantly doodled a picture of, along with the totem lathe. She also jotted down a few notes in the book.

TG: Take it to the alchemiter, the machine in the kitchen.

Nick wandered in to the kitchen, totem in hand, and set the totem on the little pad.

TG: Break whatever the totem creates, and please, be careful!

AA: What?

TG: What, I can't be nice to people anymore? What has this world come to!

TG: *TG throws her hands in the air, exasperated*

AA: Alright, alright, calm your tits

TG: My tits are calm!

AA: Nvm

Nick picked up the black rubber-band that was created on the large pad of the alchemiter and began to stretch it.

TG: WAIT!

AA: What now?

TG: Prototype your kernelsprite first!

AA: Proto-huh my kernal-what-now?

TG: Get a random item and throw it at that black floaty thing.

AA: O

AA: OK

He looked around for a minute or two before grabbing one of his mother's bunny statues and chucking it at the floating orb. The kernelsprite glowed for a couple seconds before dimming down. Now, it was a floating bunny head with two floating paws near it. It instantly flew towards the cabinets and pulled out various foods, nibbling at them. At first, it would nibble a couple honey roasted peanuts, then it would start to eat carrots or lettuce.

'Hm, interesting. I would assume a statue wouldn't need to eat food...' she screen-capped this scene, along with doodling a picture of the eating sprite, putting a caption under the picture that read "KERNELSPRITE THAT HAS BEEN PROTOTYPED WITH A RABBIT STATUE, EATING FOOD OF THE INDIVIDUAL IT BELONGS TO. VERY STRANGE!" The last two words had been underlined with a thick line to emphasize her point. Luna shoved the paper in to the book that contained all the other previous doodles and notes, the pictures laying in between their corresponding pages with the information relating to them. She set the book aside and sent another message to her friend.

TG: Now, snap the rubber band.

Nick read the message and nodded, remembering that he had the rubber-band wrapped around his wrist. He pulled it off and gripped two opposite sides of it, stretching it as far apart as he could before it snapped. Luna watched as the Sburb screen turned black and exited itself.

_**[CONGRATULATIONS! You have gained 10 stat points for completing a quest and are allowed to distribute them as you like!]**_

== Upgrade stats

_Points:_ 10

_Health:_ 58

_Stress:_ 4

_Strength:_ 8

_Intelligence:_ 14

_Courage:_ 3

Not much of a boost to courage, but that intelligence level is pretty high for a beginner! Since her strength has been upgraded as well, she is able to lift slightly heavier items than before.

_'It's a wonder Noah can sleep through all of that...'_


	2. Author's Note

Hey there! I'm the author of this fanfiction, you can call me Aero c:

I just came in to say that I appreciate the reviews, and I was honestly thinking about letting this story go like most others of mine. I guess I would do it because I would have no motivation to contininue them, people wouldn't review, or if they did, they would be those "meh yeah cool" reviews.

Don't worry though! The reviews I have gotten have made me pretty happy, so I'm going to see if I can type a second chapter for my lovelies before they give up on me. Maybe this story will be a little successful? I hope it will be, because I've always wanted to keep continuing one of my fanfics, but never did.

ENOUGH of my rambling, continue on with your day! I will be updating soon, SO LOOK FORWARD TO IT!

Aero's blasting off again! _Pchoooooooo~_ =3=


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